Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

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Sen. Elizabeth Warren takes to the Washington Post op-ed pages today to warn about the dangers of the so-called Investor-State Dispute Mechanism, which is likely to be a part of the emerging Trans-Pacific Partnership deal. In substance, if not style, Sen. Warren’s perspective on ISDS is one that libertarians and other free market advocates should share. At least, my colleague Simon Lester and I do.

ISDS grants foreign investors the right to sue host governments in third-party arbitration tribunals for treatment that allegedly fails to meet certain standards, such as new laws, regulations, or policies that might have a discriminatory effect on foreign investors that reduces the value of their assets. Certainly, investors – and in this context we’re talking mostly about multinational corporations (MNCs) – should have recourse to justice when these situations arise. But under ISDS, U.S. investors abroad and foreign investors in the United States can collect damages from the treasuries of their host governments by virtue of the judgments of arbitration panels that are entirely outside of the legal structure of the respective countries.This all raises serious questions about democratic accountability, sovereignty, checks and balances, and the separation of power.

An important pillar of trade agreements is the concept of “national treatment,” which says that imports and foreign companies will be afforded treatment no different from that afforded domestic products and companies. The principle is a commitment to nondiscrimination. But ISDS turns national treatment on its head, giving privileges to foreign companies that are not available to domestic companies. If a U.S. natural gas company believes that the value of its assets has suffered on account of a new subsidy for solar panel producers, judicial recourse is available in the U.S. court system only. But for foreign companies, ISDS provides an additional adjudicatory option.

One week after it was reported that Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson would not be indicted for killing of Michael Brown, President Obama announced that the federal government would spend $75 million on police body cameras. Wilson was not wearing a body camera when he shot Brown at least six times, and some have reasonably suggested that if Wilson had been wearing a body camera during his interaction with Brown that it would have been easier to determine if Brown’s killing was a justified or unjustified use of force.

Police in Missouri were in the news again after recently released dash camera footage revealed that an officer warned colleagues who were arresting a suspect that the camera was live before it was suddenly turned off. Both Brown’s killing in August and the footage of the April 2014 arrest highlight not only the fact that body cameras would provide investigators looking into allegations of police misconduct with valuable evidence, but also that there needs to be clear policies in place that relate to police and the cameras they use.

One lawmaker in Missouri proposed legislation that would make law enforcement camera footage policy clearer, but it should worry anyone concerned with law enforcement accountability and transparency.

Missouri State Senator Doug Libla introduced SB 331 at the end of last month. The bill would exempt footage captured by police cameras (whether attached to uniforms or vehicles) from public record requests except “upon order of a court in the course of a criminal investigation or prosecution or civil litigation.”

Libla’s bill would also ban lawmakers from requiring that law enforcement officers wear body cameras.

Taxpayers deserve to know how the police officers they fund behave. Yet Libla’s proposed legislation would make it prohibitively difficult for members of the public to view footage of police officers doing their job. Under Libla’s proposal, footage of serious police misconduct could be released by court order during an investigation.

However, if implemented, the legislation would mean that in cases in which a victim of police abuse or misconduct is unwilling or unable to sue or press criminal charges, the relevant body camera footage would not be made public. Suing the government is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor with no guarantee of success. Many people who live paycheck to paycheck simply cannot afford a lawyer’s retainer for several thousand dollars to just get into the courtroom to ask for the video to be released.

A quick glance at the Federal Register (Vol. 80, No. 37, p. 9987-88) today reveals that Attorney General Eric Holder, who earned cautious praise last month for a small reform to the federal equitable sharing program, has now delegated authority to the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to seize and “administratively forfeit” property involved in suspected drug offenses. Holder temporarily delegated this authority to the ATF on a trial basis in 2013, and today made the delegation permanent while lauding the ATF for seizing more than $19.3 million from Americans during the trial period.

Historically, when the ATF uncovered contraband subject to forfeiture under drug statutes, it was required to either refer the property to the DEA for administrative forfeiture proceedings or to a U.S. Attorney in order to initiate a judicial forfeiture action. Under today’s change, the ATF will now be authorized to seize property related to alleged drug offenses and initiate administrative forfeiture proceedings all on its own.

The DOJ claims this rule change doesn’t affect individual rights (and was thus exempt from the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act) and that the change is simply an effort to streamline the federal government’s forfeiture process. Those who now stand more likely to have their property taken without even a criminal charge may beg to differ.

Further, the department claims that forcing the ATF to go through a judicial process in order to seize property requires too much time and money. Whereas an “uncontested administrative forfeiture can be perfected in 60-90 days for minimal cost […] the costs associated with judicial forfeiture can amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars and the judicial process generally can take anywhere from 6 months to years.” In other words, affording judicial process to Americans suspected of engaging in criminal activity takes too long and costs too much.

Americans are concerned about the performance of the federal bureaucracy. Many people think that federal workers are overpaid and underworked. Some recent news stories provide fresh input to the debate.

A story yesterday at GovExec.com regards pay and performance. The federal pay structure is less efficient than private pay structures because it is generally based on seniority, not job performance. But GovExec.com finds that attempts to introduce federal performance pay have not worked very well either:

Most federal agencies are not making meaningful distinctions in performance ratings and bonuses for senior executives, according to a new watchdog report. About 85 percent of career senior executives received “outstanding” or “exceeds fully successful” ratings in their performance reviews between fiscal years 2010 and 2013, at the same time that agencies have made smaller distinctions in the amount of individual bonuses, the Government Accountability Office found. This has created a system where nearly everyone is considered outstanding…

The level of federal pay is the focus of another recent story. GovExec.com reports on the large number of workers who enjoy high pay:

More than 16,900 federal employees took home in excess of $200,000 in base salary in 2014, according to a partial database of federal salary data.

Another recent article regards federal firing. The Federal Times confirms the extraordinarily low firing rate in the federal government compared to the private sector:

Even as lawmakers press for greater accountability within government, agencies have fired fewer employees than at any time in the last 10 years, according to data from the Office of Personnel Management.

Agencies fired 9,537 federal employees for discipline or performance issues in fiscal 2014, down from 9,634 in 2013 and down from a high of 11,770 in fiscal 2010, according to the data. The firing rate held at 0.46 percent of the workforce in both fiscal 2013 and fiscal 2014 — the lowest rate in 10 years.

The private sector fires nearly six times as many employees — about 3.2 percent — according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and whether the government fires too few people or just not the right people is the subject of continued debate.

This morning the Supreme Court ruled in Yates v. United States that Sarbanes-Oxley—the massive legislation prompted by the accounting scandals of the early 2000s—can’t be used to prosecute a fisherman who caught undersized grouper. It makes eminent intuitive sense. Luckily, it’s also correct as a matter of statutory interpretation. That is, even though the relevant provision (Section 1519) punishes those who would knowingly destroy or conceal “any record, document, or tangible object” in order to impede an investigation, Justice Ginsburg is correct in writing for the plurality that “it would cut §1519 loose from its financial-fraud mooring to hold that it encompasses [objects not] used to record or preserve information.”

And Justice Alito, in a narrow concurrence that ultimately controls the case, is even more correct to apply traditional canons of statutory construction—the rules that guide judges in interpreting laws—and thereby find that “tangible object,” in the context of the list of nouns that are Sarbanes-Oxley’s target, refers to “something similar to records or documents.” In a colorful opinion rife with salamanders, crocodiles, and oil derricks, Alito asks the correct question: “How does one make a false entry on a fish?”

As Cato wrote in our brief, words such as “record” and “document” modify the term “tangible object” to include things like hard drives and floppy disks (remember those?), not grouper. Moreover, an all-encompassing reading of “tangible object” would render the words “record” and “document” unnecessary. And the broader context of Sarbanes-Oxley illuminates the relevant meaning here: The Act focuses on financial fraud in the context of companies, not fauna. Thus, the words “tangible object” should be read differently in Sarbanes-Oxley than they would be in, say, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.

If the term “tangible object” were read as broadly as the government wished, it could criminalize an unfathomable range of activities, from throwing away cigarette butts to washing away footprints in the sand. It wouldn’t provide adequate notice about potential legal violations, to which individuals have a right to so they can plan their actions accordingly and avoid getting caught in government nets.

After all, prosecutors and law enforcement officials can’t arbitrarily expand the range of criminal offenses as if they themselves were fishermen, exaggerating the size of their catches to a credulous legal system.

Christianity is thriving in China. There may be more religious believers than Communist Party members.

Beijing’s sensitivities to religion are well-known. Religion offers a competitive worldview to the Party. The latter fears many Christians, especially Catholics, have loyalties beyond China’s borders. Religion brings people together in ways that might eventually influence politics.

In its early days, the People’s Republic of China responded harshly to religious activity, but official policy has moderated over time. There is an increasing amount of reluctant toleration of religious belief.

Beijing appears to have a more relaxed policy. Last year, I visited a church of around 800 in the capital. It operated openly, attracted many young people, and hosted dozens of baptisms on the Sunday I attended. I saw a car in traffic that sported the traditional Christian “fish.”

Ironically, the lesson of the West’s experience with religion is that the best way for a government to avoid conflict between religious believers and political authorities is to provide the greatest freedom possible. Obviously, there have been many strains of Christianity throughout the centuries. However, the faith emphasizes a transcendent commitment to God while accommodating many different political perspectives.